1. These are entirely personal comments, and not based upon any deep knowledge of the field. I have no dog in this fight. The comments may serve as one possible starting point (for or against) for the discussion.

2. Animals used for medical research comprise a very small part of animals put to death annually by humans, mostly for food. For example, 10 billion animals are killed for food in USA alone each year. There is little we can do personally about the death toll (humans are cheerfully omnivorous, and that will not change), but we can regulate the manner of animal death, minimize suffering, and try eliminate unnecessary deaths.

3. A vast amount of research is also done upon farm animals by the agribusiness industry to maximize returns and minimize losses before supermarket presentation. For example, someone has referred me to what looks like a ridiculous graph about milk production per head of cow in America from 1924 to 2008 :http://owenzidar.wordpress.com/2013/06/25/surprisingly-strong-productivity-growth-in-unexpected-places/ The graph shows a huge linear increase of output for this biological creature. I could understand a curve leveling off from a low base, but this is going ever upward (??!!). I consulted a relative in the dairy business and found that the statistic was right. The animal cost however has been more sickness for the cows with constant medication, and a shorter life span.

4. In the West, from early classical times until about the 17thcentury there seems to have been a sort of prohibition on the dissection of animals or humans for research. Apparently is was a religious proscription, though a little curious given the horrendous forms of torture and abuse routinely inflicted by people on each other, and by those in power, not to mention prospects of a Christian hell.

5. My own perspective on using animals for medical research is that it can be justified in specific instances when the outcome is to genuinely relieve human suffering. In reality of course, outcomes cannot be known in advance in true scientific research. Predictably that uncertainty is exploited, sometimes criminally, more often through the inertia of institutions, agendas of personal ambition, commercial vested interests, and above all through a proliferation of dubious experimentation to maintain careers in avenues of research where useful outcomes are unlikely. Thus the ethical dimension of animal research is severely clouded by human failings, whatever the original good intentions. This seems to be the story of human enterprise in every endeavour. As always, we can only mitigate the evil, never eliminate it

Richmond, John (2007) “Animal Welfare and the ISO – the International Organization for Standardization”.Proceedings, 6th World Congress on Alternatives & Animal Use in the Life Sciences, AATEX 14, Special Issue, 723-726. online @ http://altweb.jhsph.edu/wc6/paper723.pdf